Event recorders provided on various mobile vehicles, such as planes and trains, are generally designed to record data associated with an event during operation of the vehicle. The event recorders are typically designed and built to store that recorded data in a crash-hardened memory unit. A crash-hardened memory unit is configured to withstand the severe conditions that may occur during an accident. The memory units for these event recorders are contained within enclosures that allow the stored data to remain intact after accidents or other abnormal events. An important purpose of the event recorder is to provide a source of data that can be retrieved from the event recorder after an event such as an accident, and provide a detailed and accurate accounting of exactly what happened leading up to and during the event.
On-scene investigations after events involving mobile vehicles are time consuming and are not always accurate. Often, investigators must rely on witness statements and approximations to assess the events and the relative timing of the events leading up to the accident and to determine who is at fault. It is therefore difficult to guarantee the correctness of these assessments. Insurance companies use these assessments to determine who must pay for the damage after an accident has occurred. Incorrect assessments lead to money being spent unnecessarily by the insurance companies whose clients were not at fault.
A system capable of recording, reproducing and analyzing information pertaining to an accident is very valuable. Investigations would be more accurate since the system will provide precise data prior to, during, and after the accident. Additionally, insurance companies will benefit due to improved investigation assessments. Existing event recorders often are capable of recording only specific types of data such as limited amounts of video and/or audio data, or data provided by sensors that measure vehicle operating characteristics. During accident reconstruction, the various types of data must be synchronized after the fact by stitching together the different types of data relative to different time sources associated with each of the different types of data. This process requires complex software and may lead to inaccuracies in the perceived relative timing of different recorded data.
An integrated diagnostic, telemetry, and recording system for use with a locomotive is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,965,312 of Chung et al. that issued on Jun. 21, 2011 (the '312 patent). The '312 patent discloses an imaging system that generates landmark correlated images taken from a locomotive and logs the recorded information with one or more data tags, such as tags indicative of time, operating conditions, and/or location. The event recorder of the '312 patent records and transmits video, geographic data, and locomotive operating parameters, and the data may be sent to an off-board data monitoring center based on certain conditions or geographic locations.
Although the system of the '312 patent may improve safety and aid in investigations regarding the operation of a locomotive, it may be less than optimal. In particular, the disclosed system of the '312 patent does not provide a system that allows for easy comparison of multiple types of data that are synchronized and displayed on a common display.
The system and method of the present disclosure solves one or more problems set forth above and/or other problems in the art.